Fitbit Charge Review : A Powerful Activity tracker

Health and Fitness have become among the top priorities in this busy life for everyone. And when everything is going digital, How can this important area of life be ignored. To track your daily activity, there are a lot of wrist bands available in the market which help you keep track of your fitness and daily activity. Fitbit is one of the best companies which provide activity trackers. Among its top products are Fitbit Charge, Fitbit Charge HR and Fitbit Force.

Fitbit announced its Fitbit Charge at the end of last year (2014). Before Fitbit Charge, Fitbit Force was one of the best fitness tracker of 2013 and then Fitbit announced Fitbit Charge. Fitbit announced Fitbit Charge with some major improvements after removing its Fitbit Force band. It was reported that Fitbit Force was producing rashes on the skin.

We will here review the Fitbit Charge in more details and let you help before you buy this cool fitness Activity tracker. You can get the Fitbit Charge Activity tracker from Amazon as well.

• DESIGN

Fitbit Charge is clearly the replica of Fitbit Force with some additional features and improvements. The company has admitted it as well that the Fitbit Charge is the improved version of Fitbit Force. We have no issues at all with Fitbit Force as it was an excellent fitness tracker obviously when we take skin rash reaction aside. The Fitbit Charge has the overall look of a fitness band but a small bright readout makes its look just like a smartwatch. With just push a side button the OLED readout gives the results like time, steps taken, estimated calories burned, and distance traveled. But you have to double-tap to the screen or push a side button to see the result’s display otherwise the screen will remain the dark to save the battery.

Most of the users prefer not to wear the Fitbit charge all the time because it is not water-resistant enough so they cannot go for swimming or showers and this is a real drawback that we can not track any water activity, with the Fitbit Charge Activity tracker, whereas in my opinion water activities are always the best among all the fitness activities. To recharge the battery, the Fitbit Charge uses the same USB charge dongle as the Fitbit Force. You can recharge the battery of Fitbit charge by syncing the Charge to Android, iOS or Windows apps, or sync to a PC by cable (manually). The Fitbit Charge comes in two colors you can make it yours in black and s blue-gray color. The charge comes in three different sizes and each of them can be adjusted according to your requirements.

• Display and Notifications

Fitbit Charge stands right between the best fitness tracker and best smartwatch because of its bright OLED display. The big enhancement in Charge in comparison with Flex is small, monochrome, OLED display which helps an easy access to real-time exercise stats, immediate call notifications including, name of contacts when someone calls you. This feature gives it an edge over its competitors like Jawbone Up24. Previously it was difficult to notice at first glance but the Fitbit charge’s 75 inch x .375 screen packs a little more information and as a result now the date can be seen with the time in one step by tapping two times on OLED of the Fitbit Charge. The OLED display will give you your stats in real-time, and within the app you can change things like your target goals at runtime as well.

• Battery life

The Fitbit Charge has a battery backup of five to seven days it means you can use it up to whole week after charging it completely. The battery life of the Fitbit Charge is standard but the other trackers offer more battery backup than the Fitbit Charge. For example the Jawbone Up24 can long last up to two weeks and Misfit Shine offers battery backup for months because of a built-in battery.

• Sleep tracking

The Fitbit Charge has a new sleep tracking feature which is included to log sleep quality on consistent basis. The idea of sleep tracking feature was to log sleep quality on consistent basis but it is very difficult to say that it works accurately. In the older Fitbit trackers there was a basic sleep timeline which changed to blue if you are asleep, aqua when you are restless and pink when you are awake. But the Fitbit Charge does not follow this pattern like other trackers.

• Activity Tracking

The Fitbit charge tracks your regular, routine and habitual activities like steps, distance covered, calories burned, floors climbed but heart rate monitoring is missing here, if you want the heart rate monitoring feature, Fitbit Charge HR is the alternate solution. The Fitbit charge also features a sleep monitor and the sleep trackers. In the Fitbit Charge, sleep tracker kicks in and starts working automatically unlike the Fitbit Flex in which manual sleep command was required. The Fitbit charge allows you to watch the stats in real-time and you can change your targets and goals within the app.

• Silent alarm

The Fitbit Charge has silent alarm feature which wakes the person only who secured the band on his wrist. In the Fitbit Force, ability to judge sleep quality was missing but it is back as a silent alarm feature in the Fitbit Charge. After you set the alarm in the app’s silent alarm menu this will vibrate and wake you up on exact time. Now the person next to you does not have to hear an annoying buzzing clock alarm. Cool right?

• Call notifications

At the time of Fitbit Force, Fitbit had promised to launch Caller ID feature next year and Fitbit Charge has accomplished that promise. The Fitbit Charge has a Caller ID feature which helps it to vibrate when someone calls you on your mobile( band vibrates of course because it does not have speakers). When someone calls you the wrist band doesn’t produces sound but to get your attention it does vibrate.

• Fitbit Charge app

Once you buy the Fitbit Charge, the first thing you will have to do is to sync it to the Fitbit app, don’t worry you don’t have to download the app again if you are already using the app for any other Fitbit device. But to sync the the Fitbit Charge to the Fitbit app you have to delete existing device as the app can’t handle more than one tracker at a time. To be honest it is a bit restrictive to allow only one at a time but good for accuracy.

• Easy to Sync to PC or Smartphone

To sync the Fitbit Charge with PC or smartphone is not a very difficult task as it syncs to smartphone app using Bluetooth 4.0, or to your PC and Mac using a wireless dongle.

• Conclusion

The Fitbit Charge has OLED display which is very helpful to get quick stats. The Charge has a decent battery life which can last long for up to seven days. It also has a Fitbit ecosystem which is amazing in itself. The Fitbit Charge has seen much improvement than the previous devices of Fitbit but it is still missing many things like heart rate tracking. I think the biggest thing is missing here is heart rate monitor.

In the Fitbit charge you will not be able to track your heart rate. You will have the Limited notifications in it. Another minus point for the Fitbit charge is that it is not waterproof means you can’t go for bath with the band. For getting your heart beat rate you can get the Fitbit Charge HR as it has heart-rate tracker. The price tag of Fitbit charge is too high in comparison to its competitors.

Over all the Fitbit Charge is a great replacement for the Fitbit Force but for better results and activity tracking we will recommend you to go for Fitbit Charge HR.

MobileSiri.com is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com. Read about our Affiliates Disclosure Policy here. Amazon and the Amazon logo are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates.

About Us

We at MobileSiri tend to bring the latest technology updates and news at the earliest from different reliable sources. Along with news and updates, we collect the specifications, unboxing videos, pricings and other details of the latest cell phones and gadgets and present you the pros and cons of the latest gadgets.